This invention relates to the measurement of the area traversed by a wheeled farm implement such as a seed planter, a spreader, or a combine and, more particularly, to an electrical system for indicating to a farmer the number of acres farmed by a vehicular implement.
A farmer is interested in the number of acres farmed when he is operating a tractor to pull a planter, a sprayer, a spreader, or a combine, or when he is operating such a vehicular implement of the self-propelled type, since the acreage farmed is an aid in controlling the density of liquid sprayed, or the seed population, or in determining the bushels per acre of crop harvested. The mileage indicated on the tractor odometer can be used to roughly estimate the area farmed, but this necessitates human estimating, is inconvenient to the farmer, and is of doubtful accuracy.
Electronic digital area calculators are also known of the type disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,058,712, but they involve complex electrical circuits, are expensive, and are prone to reliability problems.
It is therefore an object of the invention to provide an improved system for indicating the area traversed by a wheeled agricultural implement which is less expensive and simpler in construction than known area indicators of the electronic digital type.
It is a further object of the invention to provide an improved area calculator for use on a vehicular agricultural implement which can be easily calibrated to different implement widths, to different transmission gear ratios, and to different wheel and tire sizes.
Still another object is to provide an improved method for indicating area traversed by a vehicular implement which is simpler than prior art methods.